


You Are (Still) Not Alone

by thymelord



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who and related fandoms, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Arthur Dent as the Doctor's Companion, Copious amounts of tea, Crossover, F/F, Ford Prefect as the Doctor's Companion, M/M, Multi, Other, Semi-Canonical Crossover, Time Lord Rose Tyler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 22:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15805413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thymelord/pseuds/thymelord
Summary: The blonde figure facing away from her was achingly familiar, and the Doctor dared not hope that it was her, but then she turned around, and  -“Oh!” Rose Tyler exclaimed. “Oh, thank God I’m not alone!”Those last words triggered something in The Doctor’s memory, four words that had had a greater impact on her than any other sentence in her nine hundred years of living, spoken by the Face of Boe so long ago.You are not alone.The notion that he had not just meant the Master was something that the Doctor had never dared to take into consideration. And yet now, stethoscope moving over Rose’s chest as she lay in the sickbay, she heard it. Rose’s heartbeat.One two three four.
One two three four.What thehellwas going on?(ft. characters from the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, u don’t need to b familiar with them to read this tho)





	1. one - time's roses are scented with memory

**Author's Note:**

> i literally just meant for the hitchhiker's characters to make a fun cameo but then i realised how much of an ultimate brotp arthur dent and rose tyler would be, just them sitting in the TARDIS kitchen drinking tea and ranting about the stupid aliens they have a crush on (ford and the doctor, respectively) 
> 
> anyway enjoy
> 
> OH AND A NOTE this is not particularly river-friendly so if you like river you should, uh, watch out for that  
> 
> chap title is from the dw novel Lungbarrow

The Doctor was perched on a granite-topped counter in the kitchen, eating an apple, when she heard the faint but unmistakeable sound of the TARDIS taking off.

“What?” she said, voice muffled by her mouthful of fruit. _“What?”_ Apple dropping to the floor and rolling under a table, where it would no doubt lay forgotten for weeks until it had turned rancid and rotten, the Doctor hurtled towards the console room and grabbed the screen, turning it towards her. The TARDIS was plotting its own coordinates, which wasn’t the first time it had done so, but _this –_

“What are you doing that for?” the Doctor demanded, slapping the side of the screen. “That’s impossible!”

But clearly it wasn’t, and the Doctor did not like it when things she thought were impossible turned out to be possible after all.

The TARDIS landed. The Doctor half expected it to go dead, but it still seemed as healthy as ever. She squinted at the coordinates, thinking she must be misreading something somewhere. Because there was a fifth coordinate – and that signified a parallel world.

And the rest of them were achingly familiar. But where had she seen them before?

She tentatively stepped towards the door, opening it soundlessly, and stepping out.

She had to bite back a gasp.

Nearly all beaches looked the same, but The Doctor would recognise this one anywhere – along with the blonde figure facing away from her.

“Hello?” called The Doctor, amazed that her voice did not shake.

The girl turned around, face brightening. “Oh, thank _God!”_ And then she was running towards her, throwing her arms around The Doctor and inadvertently knocking her back a couple of paces. A heartbeat later, she appeared to realise she was hugging a complete stranger, and stepped back, bashful. “I’m sorry, it’s just - I just woke up and found myself here, five minutes ago, and – I can’t remember anything! I – Oh _God -_ I’m just so glad I’m not alone.”

“You can’t remember… anything?” said the Doctor carefully.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “ _Nothing._ I don’t know what I was doing yesterday, how I got here, where I was born – how can someone have no memories?”

“Do you know your name?”

“Rose Tyler,” she said automatically, and then frowned. “But I don’t know anything else. That’s all I have.”

“Age? Mother’s name? Hometown?”

But Rose shook her head at every one. “No. I… I don’t…” She looked as though she was on the verge of crying, and she turned her face hastily away. “This is so fucked up,” she mumbled, voice nearly snatched away by the wind; it was only due to the Doctor’s excellent Time Lord hearing that she’d caught it.

“Look,” said the Doctor cajolingly, still amazed that she herself wasn’t on the verge of having a breakdown in the middle of the beach, “just come with me, and… and I can help you figure out what’s happened to you.”

“Yeah. S’pose.” Rose sniffed noisily, then said, “What’s your name, anyway?”

“The Doctor.” She searched Rose’s face for any hint of recognition, but she only frowned slightly.

“Doctor? Doctor what?”

The Doctor couldn’t help but laugh, which only made Rose look even more confused. “What?” demanded Rose. “What’s funny?”

_Just that everyone else says doctor who, not doctor_ what, _except you. Just like the first time we met._ “Nothing, it’s just – just the Doctor. That’s my name.”

“Right,” said Rose slowly, “well, I suppose it would be too much to hope that the universe would have sent me someone normal to help.” She winked, and the Doctor laughed again. “Where are we, anyway?”

“We’re in Norway.”

“ _Norway?_ But I’m not Norwegian! I mean – I’m speaking English, and – what accent is that?”

“East London,” said the Doctor, “definitely.” _More specifically, the Powell estates._

“Huh,” said Rose. “Good. Thank God I ain’t a toff. I’d have to walk straight into the sea.”

The Doctor couldn’t stop smiling. _I’ve missed you so much, I’ve missed you so much._ “It’s freezing out here. You’d better come to my ship. If you, er, want to, that is.”

“Your… ship?” She cast her eyes along the coastline. “I don’t see a ship.”

“Not that sort of ship,” said the Doctor. “A spaceship.”

“I don’t see one of those neither. I only see that blue box over there. Has that always been there?”

“That’s my ship.”

“Get away,” laughed Rose.

“It is!” insisted the Doctor. “Come with me, and I’ll prove it to you.”

Rose looked at her, a small smile playing around her mouth. “Alright,” she said finally, “why not?”

There was no hint of recognition at all when Rose entered the TARDIS; her wide-eyed wonder was almost identical to the first time she saw it.

The Doctor couldn’t stop thinking about first times.

Rose was the first person – the only person – in nine hundred years that she had ever truly loved. But no – she couldn’t think about that, not now.

Perhaps not ever again.

She knew she should drop Rose off somewhere, but she could not. Now she had her back, against all impossibility, the only thing that would make the Doctor let her go was Rose’s own wishes.

Rose hopped onto the bed in the sickbay, shucking off her denim jacket and hanging it over the nearest chair. “So you’re an actual doctor, then?”

“Of course. I’m a doctor in many things, including medicine.”

“Blimey, that must have taken you a while. Doesn’t it take like, a decade to become a doctor of only one thing?”

“It’s taken me centuries,” said the Doctor, flashing a smile, and Rose laughed. “So,” she said as she picked up her stethoscope, “how are you feeling?”

“Except from the disorientation of having hardly any memories?” Rose laughed again, but this time it had a sharp edge. “No. I feel fine. That’s weirder than if I felt ill, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps.” The Doctor gently took Rose’s arm, placing the band of the blood pressure machine around it, and then took in a sharp inhale of breath.

“What?” demanded Rose. “What is it?”

“These readings… they don’t make any sense. You should be… well, you should be dead.” Swallowing, the Doctor took her stethoscope, placing the sounder on the left side of Rose’s chest, hearing a strong, steady heartbeat. Then, barely daring to breathe, she moved over to the right side.

She dropped the sounder, the weight of it tugging the buds from her ears and leaving the stethoscope to fall to the floor with a dull metallic thud.

“No,” breathed the Doctor, “ _no.”_

“What?” repeated Rose. “Am I going to keel over and die any second?”

“No,” said the Doctor faintly, “you seem to be in perfect health. It’s just that… well, you have two hearts.”

 

 


	2. two - the heart of gold

The Doctor drew a small vial of blood from Rose, and went to the console room to analyse it, Rose trailing behind her. Rose’s DNA had been entered into the system when she had been a companion, and the Doctor wanted to check that it really was her; she wouldn’t put it past the Master to have figured out how to direct his regenerations. Because that was the only possible explanation: that it was the Master. The Master was the only Time Lord left, except from the Doctor herself.

 _Name: Rose Tyler,_ said the console. _Age: 24. Place of birth: East London. Species –_ And here the writing flickered between two words, almost too fast for the Doctor to read either. _Human. Time Lord. Human. Time Lord._

“Are you crying?”

The Doctor’s hand flew upwards, wiping away the single tear that was threatening to spill from her eye. “No. Hayfever, that’s all.”

“Hayfever,” repeated Rose sceptically. “We’re on a spaceship.”

“Um – yes. Pollen must have got in the air vents.” Was it just her, or was this regeneration a hundred times worse at lying than her previous ones? “Anyway, it says you’re human.” _Not exactly a lie._

“But humans don’t have two hearts,” insisted Rose.

“It seems that some do,” said the Doctor weakly.

Rose frowned, and peered at the screen. A strange, inscrutable look passed over her face, and she said, “What language is that?”

“English.”

Rose gave her a look fit to kill. “What _writing system_ is that?”

“Circular Gallifreyan.”

“Circular Gallifreyan,” repeated Rose, rolling the words around her mouth. “ _Gallifreyan.”_ She reached out, as if to touch the screen, but then thought better of it. “I recognise it. I can’t read it, but I feel like I… _should_ be able to read it.”

“You’ve probably just seen it somewhere before.”

“No,” said Rose slowly, “I feel like the meanings are hovering on the periphery of my mind, just out of reach, but definitely there.”

“It’s an alien writing system. It wouldn’t make any sense for you to know it.”

Suddenly, Rose surged forward, pressing her hand just above the Doctor’s left breast, and then moving to the right. “Two hearts,” she said, in the same way that someone would accuse one of being a murderer. “You’re from the same world as this writing system. And so am I.”

“No,” said the Doctor. “No, you’re from Earth. You’re definitely from Earth.”

“ _Then why do I have two hearts?”_

“I don’t know,” said the Doctor helplessly. “I really don’t know. But we’ll find out.”

They stared at each other for a moment, the Doctor sheepishly, Rose ferociously. Finally, Rose said, “How can you be so sure I’m from Earth?”

“Well,” said the Doctor carefully, “I met you, back when you worked in a department store. There was an alien called the Nestene Consciousness controlling plastic mannequins. No, don’t laugh, I swear! Anyway, I, uh, blew up the store, and then a plastic arm followed you home, and I followed the arm, and then the Nestene took your boyfriend Mickey, so you insisted on coming along with me when I went to negotiate with it. And you were definitely human then, because you got injured and I took you to the sickbay and measured your vitals. Your DNA was entered into the system, and the blood I just took today matches up.”

“That is ridiculous,” said Rose. “So ridiculous that it must be true. So what happened after that?”

“I went away. To explore. And you stayed.”

“Are you sure that was me?”

“I told you, it’s a DNA match. Besides,” the Doctor couldn’t help but add, “I don’t think I could forget a face like that.”

Rose rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. Casting another glance towards the console, she said, “The rest of the Gallifreyans. Where are they?”

“Gone,” said the Doctor simply. “There was a war. A great war. And I was the only survivor.” She took in a breath, then said, “and our species isn’t called Gallifreyan, it’s called Time Lord. Well, sort of. Well, it's complicated.”

“Time Lord?” said Rose incredulously. “What, even the women?”

“It’s a non-gendered term in our language. _Lord_ is the only equivalent in English; it’s not my fault you’re so obsessed with gendering things.”

Rose regarded the inside of the TARDIS with newfound suspicion. “So if you’re a Time Lord… does that mean this is a… _time machine?”_

“Yep!” The Doctor turned to her, beaming. “The whole of time and space lies at your fingertips, Rose Tyler. Where would you like to start?” But before Rose could say anything, the TARDIS lurched, and both of them let out an involuntary yelp. “Sorry, looks like you’re going to have to choose some other time, she’s locking onto a distress signal.”

“A distress signal?” said Rose, alarmed. “What sort?”

“It’s coming from a ship, and that’s all I know,” murmured the Doctor, pulling the hyper-spatial dampener lever downwards. “I suppose we’ll find out when we get there.”

“Fantastic,” muttered Rose.

The TARDIS shuddered to a halt. The Doctor slowly pushed the door open, and stepped out into a sterile world of polished steel and shiny white surfaces. The Doctor ran a fingertip along the side of the wall and inspected it as Rose came out of the TARDIS, shutting the door behind her.

“New,” said the Doctor. “Brand new.” She held up her sonic screwdriver, running it along the wall, and peered out of the nearest window. “No enemy ships, no asteroids, no malfunctions… why was this distress signal transmitted?”

As though in answer, there came the light swishing noise of a door sliding open, and a rather forlorn-looking robot entered, body as new-looking as the rest of the ship. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here,” he said in a distinctly glum voice.

The Doctor blinked. “Um, hello, I’m the Doctor, and this is Rose. We caught your distress signal.”

“Oh, that,” droned the robot. “That was just me. As you can see, I don’t exactly have the most cheerful disposition. A malfunctioning personality chip, you see. Sirius Cybernetics wanted to make realistic robots. I think I’m a little bit too realistic.” He gave a long-suffering sigh. “I permanently emit a low-level distress signal. It’s not my fault, it just happens. I’m surprised your ship picked it up.”

“Yes, she’s very sensitive,” said the Doctor. “So there’s no… emergency?”

“Except for my ever-declining mental health,” drawled the android, “not that anyone cares about that.”

“What’s your name?” Rose asked kindly.

“Marvin,” he said. “Marvin the Paranoid Android.”

Rose coughed to disguise a laugh, something that was not particularly successful. “I see.” She took a moment to compose herself, then said, “Can’t we do something? Modify your personality chip?”

“I don’t know,” said Marvin dubiously, “I’d hate to become like one of those doors.”

“The doors?”

“They give a satisfied sigh whenever they open or close. Listen, the next time you go through one. Or don’t, if you want to retain your sanity.”

“Who pilots this ship?” the Doctor asked.

“See for yourself. Follow me.”

He led them through a series of shining corridors to the control room. Rose let out an exclamation of surprise, and the Doctor said with a tone of ill-disguised incredulity, “Zaphod _Beeblebrox?”_ She gave a startled laugh. “Ooh, I haven’t seen you since my…sixth regeneration, was it?”

“Whichever regeneration wore that stupid leek on his jacket,” said Zaphod, the eyebrows on both of his heads rising in synchronisation.

“Fifth, then,” said the Doctor. “And it wasn’t a leek, it was a celery.”

“You wore a _celery_ on your jacket? _”_ laughed Rose. “Why?”

“Emergencies.”

“Who the fuck needs _emergency celery?”_

“Can we talk about celery some other time?” said Zaphod. “I’m rather distracted by the fact that you’re a woman. And a rather beautiful one, if I do say so myself.”

“And who are _you?”_ Rose said, more snappishly than she’d intended.

“Zaphod Beeblebrox,” he said, holding out his third arm that protruded from the left side of his chest. Rose shook it reluctantly. “President of the Imperial Galaxy.”

“ _What?”_ chortled the Doctor. “Who the hell would vote for _you?”_

“The majority, apparently,” said Zaphod cheerfully. “It must be my charm, or possibly my dashing good looks.”

“Well, it certainly couldn’t be anything else,” said the Doctor under her breath. “And this is your ship, is it?” she said, louder.

Zaphod flashed a smile. “Now it is.”

The Doctor peered at the controls, and looked at Zaphod with unbridled astonishment. “Zaphod Leelo Beeblebrox, did you just steal the universe’s first Improbability Drive ship?”

“Yeah.” Zaphod spread his arms out. “Welcome to the Heart of Gold.”

“But you’re the president!”

“I know, good, eh? I wouldn’t have been able to get close enough otherwise.”

The Doctor rolled her eyes and glanced towards the three humans – or, at least, Rose thought they were – in the room. “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your crew?”

Zaphod indicated a girl with bronze skin and beautiful brown eyes. “Trillian, my companion.” He gestured towards a man with deep brown skin and horrendous fashion sense. “Ford Prefect, a fellow Betelgeusian Five.” Finally, he pointed towards a vaguely bemused looking pale man with auburn hair. “And Arthur Lent - ”

“Dent,” muttered the man in question.

“Arthur Bent, an Earthian. He and Ford were picked up by the ship in the middle of deep space. They’d just been sent out of an escape hatch.”

“But – those odds – they’re so improbable to be functionally impossible!”

“Need I remind you, Doctor, that this ship is powered by an Improbability Drive?”

“Yes, but still - ”

As they bickered, Rose turned to Marvin. “I don’t suppose there’s any tea here, is there?”

Marvin’s head swivelled round to face her, owl-like. “It’s always the same with you carbon-based lifeforms,” he said dolorously. “Do this Marvin, do that Marvin… brain the size of a planet and they ask me where the tea is…”

“It’s over here,” said Arthur, partially out of sympathy and partly because he couldn’t stand Marvin going on for much longer. “The machine marked Nutri-Matic.”

“Thanks.” As she was waiting for her tea to pour, she said, “Arthur Dent, that’s a very English name. You’re an actual Englishman, from actual England?”

“Yep,” said Arthur, “and don’t ask me how I got here, because I honestly don’t have a bloody clue. I mean I do, obviously, but I still half-feel I’m in a coma and making the whole thing up.”

A pinging noise signified the pouring of the tea, and Rose took a sip to discover it contained a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. Rose looked at the cup as though it had personally insulted every single one of her ancestors.

“Grim, isn’t it,” said Arthur. “I’ve half a mind to get Two-Heads over there to take me back to Earth just so I can get a decent cuppa.”

“So whereabouts from England are you from?”

“Ilford.”

“Ilford…” Rose frowned. “That’s London, yeah? East London? I’m from East London. I think.” She shook her head slightly. “Sorry, I woke up on a beach two hours ago with absolutely no memories except from my own name, I’m still trying to piece everything together. I’m getting facts, but nothing to do with my personal… history, or anything. Anyway, how did you end up travelling with the President of the Imperial Galaxy?” She sipped her tea. As terrible as the flavour was, Rose found it oddly soothing; although she didn’t know it, it was because the tea from the Nutri-Matic machine contained almost double the amount of tannins in regular tea.

“It’s a long story. Actually, no it’s not, it’s just a weird story. Er, basically, my friend, Ford Prefect over there, he’s from Betelgeuse Five and he came to Earth for a week for some research, and ended up stranded for fifteen years. It was only today that a ship came close enough for him to signal, and the cooks let us on board but then the captain decided he didn’t like us very much and then he sent us out the escape hatch, and a second before certain asphyxiation we were picked up by this ship.”

“How come you ended up along for the ride when it was Ford who signalled the ship?”

“Oh, well, I accidentally brushed against him just as he was getting translocated up, and so I was caught in it too. I don’t mind, though. Much. I mean, it’s an adventure, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Rose. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“How about you, then?”

“Me? Oh, well, like I said, woke up on a beach with no memories, then a few moments later the Doctor came along and I was all, what the hell, I’ve got no other plan of action, so I went along with her. Then our ship picked up your distress signal.”

“Distress signal? But we’re not in distress.”

“Marvin is.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Right. Of course.”

Rose drained the last of her not-tea, and looked over at the Doctor. She was still in deep conversation with Zaphod, smiling and laughing.

“Yeah, he always does that,” said Arthur.

Rose started, slightly guiltily. “What?”

“Finds a pretty girl who someone already else fancies, and charms them away.”

Rose coloured. “Oh, no, it’s not – it’s not like that. Not at all. I’ve told you, I’ve barely known her two hours.”

“I’d hardly known Tricia – Trillian over there – two hours, either.”

“You’re mistaken,” insisted Rose. “I don’t even like women that way.”

Arthur laid a hand on her shoulder, giving her a sympathetic smile. “Rule number one of space travel – forget everything you know.” He glanced over at Ford so quickly it was almost imperceptible, and Rose gave him a knowing smile that he didn’t see.

Rose stared at the Doctor and Zaphod for a moment, and abruptly realised that if she didn’t get out of there, she was going to throw a cup of not-tea in both of Zaphod’s faces. She turned to Arthur. “Wanna see our ship? It’s got tea. _Proper_ tea.”


	3. three: sailing the wine-dark sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Arthur discover the TARDIS's tea supply, and the Heart of Gold's liquor supply.

Arthur gawked at the TARDIS with unbridled astonishment. “ _That?_ But that’s not a ship, it’s a police box!”

“Is it?” said Rose coyly, and pulled on the door. It didn’t budge. Rose paused, then said, “I wonder…” She hooked a finger under a chain that had been hiding beneath her blouse, and tugged it over her head. On the end dangled a single, silver key that looked almost exactly like any key to a Yale lock, except that it shone ever so slightly with golden artron energy. She tried it, and the door clicked open.

“The Doctor must have trusted you very much if she gave you a key after only knowing you for a couple of hours,” said Arthur faintly.

“She didn’t,” said Rose, hopping into the TARDIS. “It was around my neck when I woke up, on the beach. I don’t think she knows I have it. I mean, she must have given me it… ages ago. When I last met her. But she told me that she’d only known me for a day… she must have been lying. Why was she lying?”

“She trusted you,” said Arthur gently, “so you need to return the favour. Perhaps she didn’t want you to feel obligated to be her friend. Perhaps she wanted you to choose her of your own accord… again.”

“Yes,” said Rose slowly. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“This ship is bigger on the inside,” said Arthur, in the same tone of voice that one would use when commenting on the weather.

“Just a little bit,” replied Rose cheerfully. “Now, follow me.”

They went to the sickbay, where Rose opened a few different drawers until she found her prize: a box of teabags.

“How did you know those would be there?”

“The Doctor took me here when she found me on the beach. She made me a cup of tea.”

“She must be British too,” said Arthur. “Right, we’d better go back before anyone notices we’re gone and starts panicking.”

~

“Where did you two go?” said the Doctor as soon as they re-entered the cabin.

“Went to get some proper tea,” said Rose, holding up the box. “From the TARDIS.”

“Oh,” said the Doctor, “I forgot to lock it?”

“Yeah, must have,” she said, carefully not looking at Arthur.

“God, I must be getting old,” muttered the Doctor.

“Don’t worry, you don’t look a day over three hundred,” said Zaphod with a wink.

“Will you _stop flirting!”_ Rose burst out before she could stop herself, and everyone turned to look at her in astonishment. “What?” she said defensively as she dropped a teabag in a cup and pressed the hot water button on the Nutri-Matic. “It’s doing my head in!” She immediately regretted it, and shrank back slightly from the Doctor’s stare of astonishment. “Sorry,” muttered Rose. “I’ve just been having a bit of a… Day. I think I’ll just… step out for a moment.”

“I’ll accompany you, if you don’t mind,” said Arthur. “Make sure you don’t, er, get lost.”

“Yeah, of course.”

They found a room next to the cabin that appeared to be some sort of sitting room, though with far more of a hospital vibe than your average living room. Rose collapsed in a white leather sofa, Arthur sitting beside her.

“I’m not usually like this,” said Rose miserably into her tea. “Well, actually I don’t know if I’m usually like this, because I have amnesia and I have no idea what I’m like, but I… well, I _hope_ I’m not usually like this.”

“I’m sure you’re not,” said Arthur kindly. “Waking up with no memories and ending up on a spaceship with an arrogant bloke with two heads, must be a bit stressful.”

“Yeah.” She smiled at him. “Thanks, Arthur. I just feel like flinging Zaphod into the sun. Can we do that? This thing has auto-pilot, doesn’t it?”

Arthur smirked. “I’m afraid we can hardly assassinate the president of the whole galaxy, can we?”

“I’m sure people do it all the time,” said Rose.

“You really don’t like him, do you?”

“No. He’s the most obnoxious man I’ve ever met. I know I haven’t met many people yet, but still…”

“And this has nothing to do with the fact that he keeps flirting with your Doctor, is it?”

“She’s not _my_ Doctor – oh, shut up,” she laughed, draining her tea. “Hey, do you reckon there’s anything alcoholic here?”

“Maybe that Nutri-Matic has an alcohol button,” Arthur suggested dubiously.

“Nah man, there must be a proper liquor supply here somewhere, right? This is a top of the range, fancy ship for rich people.”

“I suppose we’re going to need to ask Marvin,” said Arthur with resignation.

“Alright, I’ll go.” She slipped into the cabin, managing to go unnoticed as everyone had their back to the door. She frantically made gestures at Marvin, who seemed determined to ignore her, so with a roll of her eyes she went up to him. “Marvin?”

The robot’s head slowly turned to face her. “Yes, Your Highness?”

“Can you come with me, please?”

“I suppose so.” Marvin trudged after her.

The Doctor didn’t seem to have noticed anything, deep as she was in conversation with bloody Zaphod.

“Right,” said Rose when she went back in the room, “are you ready to get absolutely sloshed?”

“God, yes,” said Arthur. “Lead on, paranoid android.”

~

The Heart of Gold was a state of the art ship designed for the richest people in the galaxy, so precisely as Rose had anticipated, there was a _very_ well-stocked liquor cabinet. Actually, if Rose was going to be completely precise, it was more of a liquor _room._

“Holy shit,” said Arthur reverently, “I’ve never even seen half of these before. And look! Cocktail recipe books.”

Rose was perusing the gin collection, and pulled out a pink grapefruit and grambleberry one, mostly just because she wanted to know what the hell a grambleberry tasted like. She poured an outrageous amount into a tumbler, topping it off with some lemonade she found in the fridge.

“I wonder if Time Lords can get drunk like us ordinary mortals,” she said.

“Time Lords?” asked Arthur.

“Yeah, it’s what the Doctor is.”

“What’s that, like a title or something?”

“No, it’s the species. They must have a huge superiority complex. Or at least, they did, before they all died.”

“They all _died?”_

“Yeah, there was a war,” said Rose absently, finishing off her gin. “The Last Great Time War.” She went over to the fridge. “Hmmm… Arthur, fancy a chardonnay?”

“Yeah, sure. Let me just invite Ford.”

“Oh no, you can’t!” cried Rose. “What if Zaphod hears you?”

“I’ll do it really discreetly,” promised Arthur. “Soul of discretion, I am.”

“You’d better,” said Rose darkly as she fished in the cupboard for wine glasses, “or you’ll have made an enemy for life.”

Arthur was absolutely convinced that she meant it.

He returned a few moments later with Ford in tow, and only Ford, to her relief. Rose was glad Trillian wasn’t with them, because that would have meant that Zaphod and the Doctor would have been alone together.

As though summoned by her very thought, Trillian walked in.

“Oh, no,” said Rose, standing up. “Absolutely not.” She had somehow managed to drink a glass and a half of wine in the interim between Arthur leaving and Arthur returning, and she topped up her glass again before saying, “My dear Marvin, can you show me to the cabin please?”

“Humans,” said Marvin. “Memory of goldfish, the lot of you. How you managed to get advanced enough to get to the moon, I’ll never know.”

Rose burst into the cabin in the same sort of way that an FBI agent would burst into the house of a suspected terrorist. “Doctor. Join us.”

The Doctor looked around, mildly alarmed. “Rose? Is that wine?”

“Yes. I found the liquor. Fancy coming to join the rest of us?”

“Yeah!” said Zaphod.

“No,” said Rose sharply, “aircraft needs a pilot in the cabin at all times, even fancy futuristic Impossibility Drive ones.”

“Improbability Drive,” corrected Zaphod.

Rose did not deign to respond, and grabbed the Doctor’s hand. “Come along, Doctor.”

“Rose, are you okay?” said the Doctor as they went back to the liquor room.

“Yeah, of course.”

“I just get the feeling you really don’t like Zaphod.”

“No, I don’t. He reminds me of that one boy at school who thinks he’s God’s gift to women and that he knows absolutely everything in the universe. And he’s two-faced. Ha! Get it?”

The Doctor smiled. “Well, we’ll be off soon.”

“Can I bring the gin?”

“I have my own supply,” said the Doctor, winking.

~

“Bye!” said the Doctor cheerfully a few hours and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc later. “It was great to catch up with you again, Zaphod!”

“Goodbye, my dear Doctor. Don’t forget to call; you live in a phone box, so you don’t have an excuse!”

“Except that maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you,” muttered Rose, so quietly nobody else heard. She felt a hand on her arm, and turned.

“Hi,” said Arthur. “Um, I was just wondering if you could give me and Ford a lift to Betelgeuse V? It’s just we’ve had it up to here with… you know.”

“Well, we were just about to go to Apalapucia next,” said the Doctor, “the planet voted the second best tourist destination in the universe! You could come along, if you like. Or we could just drop you at - ”

“Oh, I’d love that!” said Ford brightly. “I’ve always wanted to go, thanks! Are you sure we wouldn’t be imposing?”

“Oh no, the more the merrier! It’s been a while since I’ve had a little group. I forgot how fun a _group_ was.”

“You up for it, Arthur?” said Ford, turning to him with a blinding smile.

“Of course,” said Arthur. “I haven’t actually seen another planet yet. I would quite like my first extraterrestrial planet to be the second best tourist destination.”

“Would be better if it was the first,” said Zaphod.

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor. “Dreadful place, far too many coffee shops and shitty souvenir shops. So, Apalapucia – it’s settled! Although, I’ll have to be careful with the date; last time I accidentally went when the planet was quarantined due to an outbreak of deadly plague.”

Rose and Arthur exchanged a look.

The first thing Ford did upon entering the TARDIS was to shout “Oh, wonderful! I do love some good bigger-on-the-inside technology! You’re a Time Lord, then? Or is it Lady?”

“In our language it’s not a gendered term,” shrugged the Doctor. “I don’t particularly mind.”

“Ah, I’ve always liked that about the Gallifreyans. They don’t care about gender as much as most people. Then again, that’s what you’d expect from one of the oldest civilisations in the universe.”

“So like, on Gallifrey,” said Rose, who was holding a glass of champagne in one hand, “if youse aren’t bothered about gender, does that mean you’re all pansexual?”

“Most of us, I guess,” said the Doctor. “Either that or asexual. Although, we don’t really have terms like that on Gallifrey, because nobody cares, so we don’t need them.”

“Wish Earth was like that,” said Rose wistfully. “Still, it’s getting better though, what with same-sex marriage and all that.”

“What?” said Arthur with astonishment. “When did that happen?”

Rose gave an incredulous laugh. “What, do you live under a rock? Happened years ago! In like, 2014 or something.”

“2014?” said Arthur faintly. “I just came from 1979.”

“Doctor, you cheeky thing, you time-travelled without even telling me?” Rose looked at Arthur in delight. “But this is fantastic, there’s so much to show you! So much that’s happened! The Internet! Ebooks! _Oasis!”_ She made a face. “Woolworths went bust, though. That was a bummer.”

“So what year are you from?”

“2018.” Rose was bouncing up and down on her heels like tiny spacehoppers had been attached to them. “Doctor, I know Appalapaluchia - ”

“Apalapucia.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said – well, can we make that the trip after the next one? I’d like to show Arthur twenty-first century London.”

“Alright then! Piccadilly Circus, here we come!” She typed rapidly, then looked up at Rose with a slight frown. “Rose,” she said carefully, “did you drink anything with grambleberries?”

“Grambleberries? Yeah, I had some grambleberry gin.”

The Doctor gave a sigh of resignation. “I thought so.”

“Why? What do they do? Are they dangerous?”

“No, but they’re an alcohol potentiate. Makes it stronger.”

“Yeah, I know what a potentiate is,” muttered Rose.

“Sorry,” said the Doctor, “It’s just, most people without a chemistry background aren’t aware of the term.”

“Oh, get off your Gallifreyan high horse.”

“Another thing about grambleberries,” added the Doctor, “On Gallifrey they’re nicknamed grumbleberries. Two-hearted races tend to get grumpy after eating them.”

Rose smiled slightly sheepishly. “Well, it’s good to know I’m not usually like this. I don’t suppose you have any cheerberries, do you?”

“I’ve got ecstasy tablets, do those count?” said Ford slyly, in the sort of tone that signified it was pretty much a fifty-fifty chance that he was joking or serious.

“Hang on,” said Arthur, “two-hearted races? You said you were from East London!”

“I am,” said Rose. “I never used to have two hearts, apparently. I appear to have grown one.”

Ford frowned, and whispered something in the Doctor’s ear. She shook her head vehemently, causing Ford to raise his eyebrows sceptically.

“What are you talking about?” said Arthur suspiciously.

“Gallifrey,” replied Ford. “Just checking the Hitchhiker’s Guide entry was up-to-date.”

“Oh, right.”

“Hmmm,” was all Rose said, taking a sip of her Dom Perignon.

The Doctor coughed slightly. “Uh, Rose? Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Oh, shut up Theta.”

The Doctor froze as though she had been turned to stone. “What did you say?”

Rose blinked. “I said shut up.”

“No, after that.”

“That’s all I said.”

“No, you called me something.”

“Yeah, Doctor.”

“It sounded like…” The Doctor shook her head slightly. “Never mind. I must have been hearing things.”

 


	4. four: can't relate to joy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from the song out on the weekend by neil young.

London was not invaded by aliens very often, but they did seem to be magnetised to the city whenever the Doctor was in town, so Rose stepped out of the TARDIS  rather apprehensively, as though expecting a Slitheen to swoop down immediately. But Piccadilly Circus looked entirely normal, swarming with tourists and harried-looking locals expertly navigating the throngs of tourists. Arthur stared at the enormous electronic billboards that loomed over the square. “Wow…”

“Come, come! Let’s go to – uh, Doctor, where do you think we should show Arthur? To show off the wonders of the twenty-first century?”

“Uh…” The Doctor scratched the back of her head, and smiled, running her hand through her blonde locks. “Ooh, I’m still not used to that. Such _hair._ Not ginger, but I expect blonde will be easier to dye…”

“Doctor? Place ideas?”

“Oh yes! How about…” The Doctor clicked her fingers. “Imax!”

“Imax!” said Rose exuberantly. “Excellent idea!”

“What’s that?”

“A cinema. An… uber-cinema. A cinema like nothing you’ve ever seen before! You’ll see! What shall we watch? Oh, I know…”

“Another side-effect of grambleberries,” the Doctor muttered to Ford. “After the grumpiness has worn off, hyperactivity takes its place. This is going to be a long couple of hours, I think.”

~

After the cinema, they went back to the TARDIS to find Zaphod Beeblebrox leaning against the console.

“Hi!” he said. “Sorry about the intrusion, but the _Heart of Gold_ ’s teleport went haywire and just sent me here, for some reason.”

 Dead silence.

Then Rose said, “I’m going to make some tea.”

“I’ll help,” said Arthur immediately.

 

“Do you think Zaphod was telling the truth about being accidentally transported here?” said Rose once they were in the kitchen.

“No idea,” shrugged Arthur. “It’s true that the _Heart of Gold_ ’s Improbability Drive is very unpredictable, but on the other hand, so’s Zaphod.”

“Do you think Trillian will be okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Wherever she is, she’ll be fine. She’s resourceful, and she’s got nerves of steel.”

“That’s evident by the fact that she could stand to be Zaphod’s companion.” Rose pulled out some loose-leaf Darjeeling tea from the cupboard, and then a teapot. As she set the kettle boiling, Arthur casually said, “You seem to know your way around this kitchen.”

Rose turned slowly. “I – well - ”

“You got the tea drawer and the teapot cupboard on the first try.”

“I think we’ve already established that I knew the Doctor. Very well. That’s why I have a key.”

“And then there’s this whole… two hearts thing. What’s up with that? How can you have two hearts and be a human from East London? I know people in the East End can be a bit weird, but surely this is going a bit too far…”

“I’ve turned into a Time Lord,” said Rose. “It’s the only possible explanation, but the Doctor would say it was impossible, and she bends over backwards to find an explanation that makes sense to her, even if it’s obviously wrong. She thinks she knows everything, and hates it when she’s proved wrong.”

Arthur gave her a searching look, and Rose sighed. “I know. I know what you’re going to say, and I know things – remember things – when I’m not paying attention properly. It’s like when you see something out of the corner of your eye, but when you look at it directly, it disappears. Things only float to the surface when I’m not concentrating.”

“But you know what that means, don’t you?” said Arthur excitedly. “It means all your memories are still in there, waiting to be unlocked!”

“Yeah,” said Rose, as the kettle clicked off. She poured it into the teapot. “And I’m bloody terrified.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s something – something dark there. The thing that made me lose my memory in the first place. Something so painful I blocked it out, and in doing so, blocked absolutely everything else out as well.”

“You can’t be _certain_ that’s what happened…”

“No. But I have a feeling.”

“Is it – is it about the Doctor?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.” They sat in silence until the egg timer pinged, signifying their tea had finished brewing.

“You loved her, and she loved you. I only use the past tense because you’re getting to know each other all over again, but I could have easily used the present. You love each other.”

Rose was looking flustered. “I’m sure we did care about each other very much, yes.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows.

“Look, if you keep going on about this, I’m going to have to bring up the fact that you fancy Ford Prefect.”

“What!” yelped Arthur. “I absolutely do not!”

“I have eyes, Arthur.”

“Well you clearly don’t, because I do _not_ fancy Ford! He’s an alien who has the name of a car, for God’s sake, and besides, I don’t even like men that way!”

Rose smirked. “A wise man once told me that when you go space travelling, you should forget everything you thought you knew.”

“Oh shut _up!”_

~

Rose woke up.

The clock said it was one a.m, but that didn’t really mean anything on a time machine. She drew a pale pink silk dressing gown around her; she’d found the garment in the wardrobe, and it was a perfect fit. She couldn’t help but wonder if it had been hers.

She opened her bedroom door as quietly as possible, then padded to the console room, which had mercifully empty. She stepped up to the main screen, which was turned off, and ran her eyes over the keyboard. A memory floated to the surface, telling her that it was the Linear Gallifreyan alphabet, but not how to read it.

“Fat lot of good that is, you useless old brain,” muttered Rose.

Her hand hovered over a button at the top of the keyboard that was a different shape to the rest, and away from all the other keys, pretty much the universal clues for a power button. She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Oh, what the hell,” and pressed it.

The console screen lit up, black screen replaced by a pale blue background with black phrases in Circular Gallifreyan. “Yet again, fat lot of good that is.” She glared at the screen for a moment. “TARDIS, please change to English, writing system the Latin alphabet.”

Old English flicked on the screen.

“Very funny,” said Rose. “Early twenty-first century AD English, please.”

The TARDIS obliged.

ᴛᴀʀᴅɪs ᴛʏᴘᴇ 40 ᴍᴀɪɴ ᴄᴏɴsᴏʟᴇ.

Rose stared at it. _Right, now what?_ She supposed the only thing she could do was hope the TARDIS was sentient. “Do you, um, hold files?”

ʏᴇs.

She was mildly surprised that her hunch had turned out to be the ghost of a memory after all. “On what?” she asked.

ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ.

“Show me the file on the Doctor, please.”

ɴᴀᴍᴇ: ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴏᴄᴛᴏʀ.  
ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ᴏғ ᴏʀɪɢɪɴ: ɢᴀʟʟɪғʀᴇʏ.  
sᴘᴇᴄɪᴇs: ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʟᴏʀᴅ.  
ᴀɢᴇ: 2210 ʏᴇᴀʀs. (ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛ ʀᴇɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀᴛɪᴏɴ: ᴛᴡᴏ ᴡᴇᴇᴋs)

 “Regeneration,” she said slowly. The door opened, and Rose spun, hearts beating frantically.

“Ah, I see I’m not the only one who had trouble sleeping,” said Arthur Dent.

“Oh, thank the Other, I thought you were the Doctor. Here, come and look at this. It’s the Doctor’s file.”

Arthur came around, squinting at it. “Blimey! Over one thousand years old! Zaphod was right about her looking good for her age, wasn’t he?”

“Please do not say the Z-word. But look.” Rose tapped the screen with her finger. “But look. Regeneration. When Zaphod - ”

“Now you’re saying the Z-word.”

Rose threw him a look. “When he was surprised the Doctor was a woman, I thought that just meant she was transgender. And maybe she is, but it’s more than that – I remember now. Time Lords can cheat death by regenerating into a new body.”

“How?”

“Regeneration energy, and… something to do with artrons. It’s one of the intrinsic parts of being a Time Lord, along with the ability to see time imprints. Because they were just like any other humanoid race at the beginning; they became as they are due to prolonged exposure to the Untempered Schism.”

“The what?”

“The Untempered Schism. It’s – oh, fuck, it’s gone. And I was doing so well. TARDIS, show me the file for the Untempered Schism.”

ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴᴛᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴇᴅ sᴄʜɪsᴍ ɪs ᴀ ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴀʟ ᴏᴘᴇɴɪɴɢ ɪɴ sᴘᴀᴄᴇᴛɪᴍᴇ, ʟᴏᴄᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʟᴏʀᴅs, ɢᴀʟʟɪғʀᴇʏ. ɪᴛ ɪs ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴀsᴏɴ ᴡʜʏ ɢᴀʟʟɪғʀᴇʏᴀɴs ʙᴇᴄᴀᴍᴇ sᴏ ᴀᴛᴛᴜɴᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛᴇᴍᴘᴏʀᴀʟ ᴍᴏᴠᴇᴍᴇɴᴛs.

“Not very talkative, are you?” said Rose. “File on Gallifrey.”

ɢᴀʟʟɪғʀᴇʏ ɪs ᴀ ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏɴsᴛᴇʟʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴋᴀsᴛᴇʀʙᴏʀᴏᴜs, ᴏғᴛᴇɴ ɴɪᴄᴋɴᴀᴍᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇ sʜɪɴɪɴɢ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ sᴇᴠᴇɴ sʏsᴛᴇᴍs. ɪᴛ ɪs ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏᴍᴇ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʟᴏʀᴅs, ᴏɴᴇ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏʟᴅᴇsᴛ ᴄɪᴠɪʟɪsᴀᴛɪᴏɴs ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀsᴇ. ɪᴛ ɪs ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛʟʏ ɪɴ ᴀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʟᴏᴄᴋ.

“Do you ever get the feeling we’re getting the abridged version?” muttered Arthur.

“Show us the faces of the Doctor.”

Thirteen faces appeared on the screen, and Rose squinted at them. “Those two… they look familiar…”

“Rose,” said Arthur quietly. “If you’re a Time Lord now and you used to be human, then what if on the point of death you regenerated from a human to a Time Lord?”

“But I have the same face!”

“Maybe it works differently with human-to-Time-Lord regenerations.”

“But what could possibly have happened to me that would allow me to regenerate? It took the Time Lords billions of years of proximity to the Schism to evolve thus.”

The control screen suddenly changed of its own accord.

ɴᴀᴍᴇ: ᴍᴇʟᴏᴅʏ ᴘᴏɴᴅ.

ᴀssᴜᴍᴇᴅ ᴀʟɪᴀs: ʀɪᴠᴇʀ sᴏɴɢ.

sᴘᴏᴜsᴇ: ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴏᴄᴛᴏʀ.

ʀɪᴠᴇʀ sᴏɴɢ ɪs ᴀ ʜᴜᴍᴀɴ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʜᴀᴅ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʟᴏʀᴅ ᴅɴᴀ sᴘʟɪᴄᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʜᴇʀ ᴄʜʀᴏᴍᴏsᴏᴍᴇs ᴅᴜᴇ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇɪɴɢ ᴄᴏɴᴄᴇɪᴠᴇᴅ ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴀʀᴅɪs ᴡᴀs ɪɴ ғʟɪɢʜᴛ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴠᴏʀᴛᴇx. sʜᴇ ɪs ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀᴜɢʜᴛᴇʀ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴏᴄᴛᴏʀ's ғᴏʀᴍᴇʀ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀɴɪᴏɴs, ᴀᴍᴇʟɪᴀ ᴘᴏɴᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴏʀʏ ᴡɪʟʟɪᴀᴍs. sʜᴇ ᴡᴀs ᴀʙᴅᴜᴄᴛᴇᴅ ʙʏ ᴛʜᴇ sɪʟᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴀs ᴀ ᴄʜɪʟᴅ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴜsᴇᴅ ᴀs ᴀ ᴡᴇᴀᴘᴏɴ ᴀɢᴀɪɴsᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴏᴄᴛᴏʀ, ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ᴜʟᴛɪᴍᴀᴛᴇʟʏ ғᴀɪʟᴇᴅ ᴅᴜᴇ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇʀ ғᴀʟʟɪɴɢ ɪɴ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʜɪᴍ.

Silence.

“Well, I definitely wasn’t conceived in the middle of a Time Vortex, so I must have had some other form of contact with a vast amount of artron energy. I expect that could probably be found in the heart of the TARDIS, although why I would have been exposed to it I don’t know.” Her voice sounded strangely flat.

“Rose - ”

“Wife,” she said. “The Doctor has a _wife,_ and I have no idea why this bothers me so much. Or rather, I do, but – oh, bugger it. Fancy some tea?” 


	5. five: to the bone

Rose and Arthur fell asleep side-by-side in her double bed, furnished with gorgeous silk damask-rose coloured sheets. They were both under the covers but fully clothed, a few inches of space separating them. Rose awoke first, retrieving her dressing gown from the floor. She blinked groggily towards the clock, which stated that it was half-past seven in the morning, which was a surprise, because usually she didn’t awake of her own volition before ten. Rose didn’t know how long the Doctor slept for, but she wouldn’t be surprised if she was awake.

She was applying pink lipstick – one she’d found at the dressing table that just so happened to be her exact colour - at the mirror when the door burst open.

“Rose, I – oh!” Catching sight of Arthur asleep in the bed, sheets pulled up to his neck so she couldn’t see he still had his clothes on, the Doctor sucked in a breath. “S-sorry! I’ll just – go -” She backtracked, door shutting softly in her wake.

Arthur began to stir, and Rose gently shook his shoulder. “Arthur? Arthur!”

“What?” he said sleepily.

“The Doctor thinks we slept together.”

Arthur dissolved in laughter. “Je- _sus!”_

“I know! For someone who’s lived for over two millennia, she’s terrible at reading people. Although I can kinda see how she came to the conclusion.” She hesitated. “Hey…”

“Yes?” said Arthur suspiciously.

“Let’s make her jealous.”

~

An hour later, Rose was leaning against the console, a glass of gin and rosehip lemonade in her hand. The Doctor had given her a look when she came in with it, but the Doctor knew from the mutinous look on Rose’s face that she’d the verbal equivalent of a punch in the solar plexus if she tried to tell her off. She had already tried to ask her what was wrong, but Rose had merely said, “Nothing,” and gone back to staring at the panels with Circular Gallifreyan written on them at the top of the central column, as though hoping their meaning would suddenly jump in her head. The Doctor had asked Arthur what was wrong with her, but he’d just said she was homesick.

“Homesick?” said the Doctor incredulously. “She can’t even remember her home!”

“Hiraeth,” said Arthur.

“What?”

“Hiraeth,” repeated Arthur. “Never heard of it? Finally, something you don’t know.” The Doctor rolled her eyes at him, and he continued. “It’s a Welsh word, one of those untranslatable concepts. It’s a bit like a cross between nostalgia and homesickness, but it goes… to the bone. So much to the bone that even when you’ve forgotten all your memories, the feeling still lingers.”

“We have a similar concept in Gallifreyan,” murmured the Doctor. “Laliyor. I never felt it until… until Gallifrey was gone. I never thought I would feel it. Ever. But I did.” She swallowed, and gave a smile that was so strained it almost looked physically painful. “So… um… you and Rose?”

Arthur have an inward groan; Rose had assured him that the Doctor would rather take a holiday on Skaro than talk about relationships or feelings. “Uh,” he said, “actually, we didn’t – we didn’t sleep together. We were just hanging out. Platonically.”

“In the same bed?”

“We were tired,” said Arthur. “I’m not interested in her that way. I mean, she’s beautiful, but - ”

“But you fancy Ford?” said the Doctor, eyes twinkling.

“No!” snapped Arthur. “God, why does everyone always think that?”

The Doctor chuckled, and then looked uncertainly towards Rose. “It’s just, she did say - ”

“Must have just been a communication breakdown.”

“No, she specifically said - ”

“Oh look, here’s Ford,” said Arthur, rushing over to the other side of the control room, and the Doctor sighed.

Rose perked up slightly when she saw Arthur and Ford together, waggling her eyebrows at Arthur when the other’s back was turned. Arthur mimed drawing a knife across his throat.

Suddenly, the TARDIS jolted. This wasn’t unusual when the Doctor was piloting, but her eyes widened and she grabbed the console screen towards her. “Oh, for the love of the Other - ”

Zaphod Beeblebrox sauntered in, both his mouths grinning. “Hey, doll,” he said to the Doctor. “What’s up? Stormy, is it?”

“The TARDIS – she’s locked onto a distress signal.”

“What, again?” said Rose. “Can’t you stop her from doing that?”

“She just kind of, you know, does what she likes.”

“Besides,” said Arthur, nudging Rose with his elbow, “if you hadn’t locked onto Marvin’s signal, you’d never have met me!”

“Exactly,” smirked Rose, and Arthur elbowed her again, harder.

“Alright,” said the Doctor, squinting at the screen. “It seems to be an Apalapucian voyage ship, intergalactic class. The thirty-third century version of a luxury cruiseliner.”

The five of them bundled out of the TARDIS, even though Rose shot a look at Zaphod that strongly suggested she thought he’d be a hindrance rather than a help. He’d been elected the President of the Milky Way, which would suggest he wasn’t completely hopeless, but then again, the Doctor had somehow managed to become the President of Gallifrey and Donald Trump had managed to become the President of the United States, so perhaps it wasn’t as prestigious a position as was generally assumed.

But to her great surprise, Zaphod immediately rushed over to the computer set in the wall of the room they’d landed in, and began typing rapidly. “Signs of life,” he said to the Doctor, and it was the first time Rose had heard him use a professional tone. “Signs of life for sapient species brings up just the one, but broadening it – thousands, tens of thousands… shit. Millions.”

“Maybe it’s bacteria,” said Arthur, and Zaphod gave him a patronising glance.

“They obviously aren’t configured to count bacteria, Arthur,” he said.

“Whatever,” snapped Arthur.

Rose was running her hand along the wall. She stepped forward, touching the tip of her tongue to it. “Stainless steel,” she said. “Regular, normal, stainless steel. Isn’t that a bit primitive for a thirty-fourth century luxury intergalactic ship?”

“I said thirty-third,” said the Doctor.

“No, she’s right,” said Zaphod, squinting at the screen. “It’s the year 3341.”

Ford turned, eyes narrowing slightly. “Rose, that’s a very… well… Time Lord thing to do. And say.”

Rose bristled slightly. “You mean an intelligent thing to do?”

“No, I mean a _Time Lord_ thing. You licked the wall!”

“Archaeologists lick rocks!”

“You’re not an archaeologist, and this isn’t a rock! Besides, I’m not a Time Lord, so it’s not as if I have the sort of elitism most Gallifreyans have. No offence, Doctor.”

“Maybe I am a Time Lord,” said Rose, looking at the Doctor out of the corner of her eye. “After all, I don’t know anything about my past.”

The Doctor carefully avoided looking at her, and Rose’s jaw locked.

“Zaphod, does that monitor say what the ship us called?” said the Doctor.

“Uh, hang on… yeah. HIMS Bad Wolf. Weird name, don’t you think?”

The strangest expression came over the Doctor’s face, and then was gone so quickly Rose thought she was seeing things.

“Does that mean anything to you, Doctor?” said Zaphod.

“HIMS stands for Her – or His – Imperial Majesty’s ship,” she said.

Zaphod’s eyes narrowed. “I meant the Bad Wolf part.”

“Oh. Er – no.”

A door at the end of the corridor slammed open with a similar sound to a herd of stampeding rhinoceroses. A woman with light skin and raven-black hair, who had the most stressed expression imaginable on her face – so much so that Rose was almost impressed a human being could hold that much stress and not immediately keel over of a coronary – was standing in the doorway.

“What are you all doing here? Are you police? How did you _get_ here?”

“We’re here to help,” said Rose, and held out her hand. “I’m Rose.

“Dominique,” she said, shaking it, “but call me Minnie. I am so pleased to see you here – I’m the only one left.”

 

 


	6. six: things are shaping up to be pretty ood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'd apologise for the chapter title but i'm not actually sorry
> 
> my facecast for dominique is katie mcgrath 

“The only crew left, anyway,” Minnie added. “Not that I ever was the crew… uh… it’s a long story. I was here to hijack it, because it’s transporting thousands of Ood from Apalapucia to Arkannis II. Basically, we – the Friends of the Ood – blew up all the carrierships, and the only ship near enough and big enough to transport all the Ood was this one. And then I snuck on board, intending to land it somewhere safe on the Ood Sphere. But then the monsters…”

“They’re shadows, aren’t they?” said the Doctor grimly. “Carnivorous shadows.”

“Yes! But how on Earth did you - ”

“Your computer counted millions of lifeforms. That could only be the Vashta Nerada – tiny, microscopic creatures that gather in swarms to strip flesh off living creatures. They are the only undefeatable, unkillable lifeform in the universe, and the most terrifying – the Vashta Nerada. So, Dominique Oakley, can you tell me why they’re afraid of _you?”_

Minnie smiled. “You’re quick. I like that.” She pulled out a prism-like object from her pocket. “Undefeatable, you say? Are you sure?”

“What’s that?” said the Doctor, more sharply than she’d intended.

“Apalapucian glass pyramid, practically indestructible. There’s a little flap here; put meat in it, and the shadows go inside and die.”

“Vashta Nerada can’t die.”

Minnie gave her a shark-like grin. “All can die. And all will.”

“Is that all it is? Apalapucian glass?”

“No, it’s lined with diamonds. It’s a special sort of diamonds, I discovered a cache of them a while ago back when I was a treasure hunter – they have remarkable properties. I carry them everywhere, just in case.”

The Doctor wordlessly held out her hand, and Minnie dropped it into her hand. She pulled the flap open, peered inside, and sucked in a breath. “I knew it.”

“You know them?” said Minnie, surprised. “What are they?”

“White-point stars,” breathed the Doctor, voice a perfect balance between reverence and fear.

“How do you know them? Where do they come from?”

“They come from my homeworld.” She looked up, meeting Minnie’s gaze. “Gallifrey.”

Minnie gave a startled little laugh. “ _Gallifrey?_ Gallifrey, as in, Time Lords? But Gallifrey isn’t real. It’s a fairy story.”

The Doctor gave a sad smile. “Already the stuff of legends, gone the same way as the Trojan War and King Arthur. History as legend. History as myth.”

“You mean those were real?” interjected Arthur. “King Arthur, and Troy, and everything?”

“Oh yes,” said the Doctor. “I was there. Well, for Arthur, at least. Troy never appealed to me. Had enough war to last a lifetime. Multiple lifetimes.”  She took a breath. “How did you know the prism would work?”

“I didn’t,” said Minnie simply. “But I had to try something, and white point stars have all sorts of interesting properties, as I’m sure you are aware, _Time Lord._ ”

Suddenly there was a scream, and they all spun in unison to see Arthur pointing a trembling hand at a tentacled humanoid figure. “M-Monster!” he stuttered.

“No, Arthur, that’s an Ood,” said Rose gently. “The nicest aliens you’ll ever meet, I guarantee it.”

“O-Oh.” Arthur flushed. “I’m sorry, uh… Ood.”

“My name is Ood Lambda,” said the Ood, orb in his hand flashing.

“A pleasure,” said Arthur faintly.

“Right, so we have two courses of action,” said Minnie briskly. “One, we take all the Ood back to the TARDIS. Two, we imprison the Vashta Nerada into this prism of – what did you call them? White point stars.”

“TARDIS?” said the Doctor. “How did you know about my TARDIS?”

Minnie scoffed. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve read the legends, or as you say, history, when it comes to the Time Lords. I was obsessed with them. I know what a TARDIS is, I know that’s how you must have got here, and I know they are absolutely huge.” She turned on her heel. “Time to gather the Ood.”

The Doctor and Rose exchanged a startled look as Minnie began to walk back the way she’d come, and the Doctor muttered, “I’m really not used to other people taking charge.”

Suddenly Minnie stopped, and spun back. “ _Or -_ idea three – we all congregate in the TARDIS, which should be safe if you’ve got all the shields and things up, and I make a laser gun out of this prism.”

The Doctor blinked. “That… can you do that?”

“ _We_ can. Perhaps. Shall we find out?”

~

Rose never thought she would meet anyone as magnetic as the Doctor, but then she met Dominique.

Minnie and the Doctor worked in tandem with each other, orbiting around each other in perfect harmony like twin stars in a binary system. “How do you know all this?” said the Doctor in disbelief.

Minnie gave her a coy glance. “You think that Time Lords are the only species with any scientific knowhow?”

“Of course not!” said the Doctor indignantly. “But this… this is so advanced.”

“Ah. You think Time Lords are the only species with _advanced_ scientific knowhow.”

“No!”

“You know she’s right,” drawled Rose, and the Doctor shot her a look. Minnie smiled at her warmly, and Rose felt her hearts skip a beat.

Minnie put the last finishing touch on her laser gun, cocking it. “Do you want to shoot it, Doctor?”

The Doctor gave a tiny little shudder. “No, I don’t – no.”

“I’ll do it,” said Zaphod, stepping forward. “I’ve got a wider field of vision than most - ” the eyebrows on both his heads wiggled up and down – “and I’m an old hand. Deadshot, I am.”

Seeing Arthur’s sceptical look, Ford leaned in and whispered, “I’m afraid to say he’s right. I’ve known him all my life, and I’ve only known him miss a shot once since the age of fifteen.”

“You’d better be right,” Arthur whispered back. “Or we’re all going to get eaten by bloody _shadows.”_  

“I can hear you, you know,” said Zaphod cheerfully. “Twice the ears.”

“I’m not sure biology works like that…”

“Like you’d know, Earthman.” He hefted the gun in his arms, and as much as Arthur hated to admit it, the way he held it was like second nature. “So what – I just shoot at them? Shoot at the shadows?”

“Yep,” said Minnie. “No idea if it’s going to work, though, because it’s never been done before, so…”

“But it probably will,” finished the Doctor. “On a theoretical level, it’s perfect.”

Rose and Arthur exchanged a look.


	7. seven: half-sick of shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title is from the poem The Lady of Shalott, by Tennyson

Zaphod may be one of the most annoying people Rose had ever met, but he was absolutely wonderful in a crisis.

As they trooped down the corridors, Zaphod at their head, there were a couple of disembodied shadows swirling on the walls, but they seemed too afraid to dip any closer. In an ideal world, they would stay like that, but Rose knew that the instant they collected the Ood, they would swoop on them, thinking that there was no way Zaphod would be able to catch them in such a crowd of Ood, like a lioness picking off a single gazelle from the herd.

“I hate the fact that we’re going to lose some Ood,” said Minnie quietly, “but we can’t just stay here forever. Then we all _would_ get killed, picked off one by one.” She inhaled sharply. “We’re going to have to try.” She squeezed the Doctor’s hand briefly. “I’m so glad someone answered our distress call; I was beginning to think nobody would. Everyone’s so terrified of the Vashta Nerada, you see.”

“So are we,” said the Doctor. “But if I’d let fear put me off, I’d have stopped saving people centuries ago.”

Minnie’s eyebrows rose. “So, a proper Time Lord, with a proper lifespan? You’re _centuries_ old?”

“A couple of millennia,” replied the Doctor, and then gave her a sidelong look. “You mean you’ve never heard of me?”

Minnie grinned. “Should I have?”

“Well, I don’t like to think I have a big ego, but I do think I can safely say I am the most famous renegade Time Lord of all time, except from perhaps the Master… although they’re more _infamous_ than famous…”

“My books were all about the early history of Gallifrey,” shrugged Minnie. “You know, the founding of the Citadel, and all of that. I don’t suppose you’d been born yet. Although, does that really matter when it comes to Time Lords? Anyway…”

“Minnie,” said the Doctor quietly. “We’re going to have to get this ship back up and running.”

Minnie stopped dead, and turned. “ _What?”_

“I can’t take the Ood on my TARDIS, I just can’t, not if there’s hundreds of them. The TARDIS can put up a barrier to prevent the Vashta Nerada from entering for a minute or so, but there’s no way she’ll be able to hold it for that long, and I absolutely cannot have Vashta on my ship. We’d never be safe again. I don’t suppose you know what’s wrong with the ship, do you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” said Minnie. “I just don’t know how to fly it, so I turned the engines off. I thought it would be safer than keeping them running.” Her brow furrowed. “Why didn’t _I_ think of that?”

“Overexcited by the prospect of a TARDIS?” suggested the Doctor, and Minnie smiled.

Suddenly, Zaphod halted. “Rose,” he said, voice deathly calm, “stay still. Stay as still as if there was a wasp on your face.”

“To be honest,” said Rose, barely moving her mouth, “if there was a wasp on my face, I absolutely would swat it.”

 “Well, you can’t swat these, so don’t even try.” He slowly lifted the laser gun, one head facing Rose’s second shadow and the other’s eyes fixated firmly on the gun. “Where should I aim, Doctor, Minnie?”

“Straight at the floor, at the shadow,” replied the Doctor, and gave a tiny sigh. “I _hate_ guns.”

“You’ve said,” said Minnie wryly. “But you can’t use brains against the Vashta Nerada. Well, you can. You can use brains to build weapons.”

“We’re dismantling the gun as soon as we’re off this ship,” said the Doctor. “A laser made with white-point stars could do untold damage. I only agreed to help make it in the first place because no better idea has presented itself, and for every minute that we dawdle, another Ood dies.”

Zaphod fired at the false shadow, causing Rose to let out an involuntary yelp as the laser beam passed just inches from her skin. Minnie watched in fascination as the shadow dissolved into wisps, and seemed to disappear. The Doctor pulled out her sonic screwdriver, sending some pulses through the air. “Not dead,” she murmured. “The white-point stars haven’t killed them, but inhibited their ability to swarm together. No idea how long that lasts for, so we’d better get a shift on.”

“I’m really glad you said that,” said Zaphod, “because I was actually just going to have a little bit of a nap.”

They made their way to the control room, everyone glancing down every few seconds to check each other’s shadows. Rose kept thinking she could see coalescing wisps of black out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned to look at them directly, there was nothing there.

Minnie tugged on the Doctor’s sleeve, a gesture which Rose found unbearably charming. “Doctor,” she said urgently. “If the Vashta Nerada hunt solely in groups and move as a swarm, does that mean they’re a gestalt race?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor.

“Like the Ood?” said Minnie meaningfully.

“Oh,” said the Doctor quietly, “ _oh.”_ She gave Minnie a glance full of pure admiration. “You _are_ clever, Dominique Oakley.”

“Does everyone here take classes on how to be as enigmatic as possible?” grumbled Arthur.

“Gestalt means hivemind,” said the Doctor. “Individual identities, but a shared consciousness. Separate, yet one.”

“Like the Catholic Church.” Arthur nodded sagely, and Zaphod rolled all four of his eyes.

“If you say so,” said the Doctor, nonplussed.

“Only if the Church was telepathic and the Pope was a gigantic brain, though,” added Ford.

“But why is that a problem?” asked Arthur. “You and Minnie sounded worried…”

“The Vashta Nerada could potentially infiltrate the Ood’s shared telepathic field,” explained the Doctor, “and coerce them into doing things. Like attacking us.

“And if they hadn’t had that idea yet, we’ve just given it to them,” snapped Zaphod.

“Ah,” said the Doctor faintly. “Well, they don’t have ears, do they?”

Zaphod glowered. “They’d better fucking not.”

“So what are we going to do if the Vashta Nerada _do_ control the Ood?” said Arthur.

“A great question,” replied the Doctor, “and I hope we won’t need an answer, because I haven’t got one.”

“How the fuck did you manage to live this long?” cried Zaphod, exasperated.

“Not a clue,” said the Doctor cheerfully.


	8. eight: sweet child in time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Sweet child in time  
>  You'll see the line  
> The line that's drawn between  
> Good and bad"_  
> \- 'Child in Time,' Deep Purple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oMG i am sorry this was SUCH a long wait (and if ur following my other dw multi-chap, We Are The Time Lords Victorious, i apologise for my laxness with that one too) but life has been craaAAAzy!! don't worry though, i'm still updating! <3

Naturally, to get to the engine room, they had to go through the room where the Ood were.  

“Don’t like this,” Arthur was muttering under his breath every few seconds as they edged along the wall nearest the door, thousands of silent Ood staring forwards, “ _really_ don’t like this.”

“It’ll be fine,” said Rose, nudging him with her elbow. “I promise. As if I’d ever let anything happen to you.”

Arthur shot her a sceptical look, which she stolidly ignored.

The Ood suddenly turned to them in synchronisation, eyes glowing deep red, and Rose automatically grabbed for the Doctor’s hand. “Doctor? What’s happening?”

“I was right,” replied the Doctor, squeezing her hand briefly. “The Vashta Nerada are speaking through the Ood. Both of the species have extraordinary telepathic powers, so the Vashta can hijack their telepathic systems.”

“Doctor,” said the thousands of Ood in synchronisation, and the Doctor literally jumped. “Oh, Doctor, look at you. Scared of yourself and for others. Afraid of your own newness. We see deeper, though. Further back. The outcast, abandoned and unknown. _The timeless child_.”

“What did you just say?” said the Doctor sharply.

“She doesn’t know,” jeered the Vashta in the guise of the Ood, “She doesn’t know.”

“ _Stop_ trying to derail us,” said Minnie sharply, “Stop that _now._ We can reach an agreement here. You leave us alone – _all_ of us, including the Ood – and you live. You attack, or goad us, and you die. Don’t think you can win this, Vashta. And if you _dare_ psychically read me, for the first time in your miserable lives you’re going to wish you’d never been born. In fact…” She bared her teeth in a grin, snatching the gun from a startled Zaphod, aiming it at the dark shadows swirling over the ceiling.“I dare you.” There was a moment of pregnant silence, and all the Ood’s eyes turned back to normal, a couple of them looking at their neighbours with confusion.

“Who are you?” demanded the Doctor.

“You’re welcome,” muttered Minnie. “And I told you who I am. I’m Dominique Oakley.”

“And who exactly is that, I wonder?”

Minnie shrugged, handing the gun back to Zaphod. “I don’t know what to tell you, Doctor. I don’t hold any secrets, except from being a member of the Friends of the Ood, which you obviously already know.” She turned, and the Doctor watched her with slightly narrowed eyes.

“Doctor?” asked Rose tentatively, gently touching her arm. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” said the Doctor with forced joviality. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“The Timeless Child…”

“I have no idea what they mean,” said the Doctor lightly. “Just trying to rattle me, I think.”

Rose was not convinced, but knew better than to try to get an answer out of the Doctor when she didn’t want to give one.

“Could it be you?” whispered Arthur as the Doctor moved ahead. “I mean, Timeless, Time Lord...”

“I’m not a child, thank you very much.”

“Maybe you are to them. They said there was no way to kill the Vashta; they might have been alive for hundreds of millennia. You’d be a child to them. Even the Doctor would be.”

They went through corridor after corridor without meeting anything, neither Ood nor Vashta. As per usual, it seemed that the TARDIS had landed as far away as physically possible from the engine room. A few minutes after their last encounter with the Vashta, Rose turned to the Doctor and said, “I thought you hate guns.”

“I do,” said the Doctor with some surprise.

“You helped Minnie make that,” said Rose, indicating the laser.

 The Doctor sucked in a breath. “I often say that brains beat bullets, but when your adversary is literally undefeatable… well, you do tend to get a little desperate. Besides,” added the Doctor, her voice dropping by several decibels, “you do tend to be a little antagonistic towards the species that killed your wife. It might seem a bit harsh to dislike an entire species, but when they’re a hivemind like the Vashta and essentially one organism…”

Noticing the classic Doctor Says Something About Herself And Immediately Rambles On About A Different Subject technique, Rose interjected, “I’m so sorry about your wife.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, because she didn’t want to see the Doctor in pain and could only imagine what she’d gone through, but she couldn’t help but be the tiniest bit pleased that she didn’t have a rival. Just the tiniest, microscopic bit pleased.

The Doctor gave a strained smile, and bobbed her head slightly. Then she said, “What I don’t understand is why there are so many of them here. The only other time I’ve encountered them in such numbers was in The Library, and that was because their spores were carried in the books… but here? I can only come to the conclusion that they were put here on purpose.”

“But no one can control the Vashta Nerada,” countered Ford. “It’s impossible.”

“Death could.” Minnie’s voice was so quiet that the others couldn’t be sure that she’d meant them to hear, and indeed they wouldn’t have heard had everything else not been entirely silent, including the absence of humming engines.

“Death isn’t a thing, a _person,”_ protested Rose. “It’s just the… cessation of life.”

But before Minnie could say anything else, Rose looked down, and saw two shadows.

“Always me,” said Rose lightly. “Always me with the Vashta. They don’t give up, do they?”

And the Doctor grabbed the gun.

~

Ford Prefect had not read all of the _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_. He hadn’t even read a hundredth of it, because he was a hoopy frood who actually had a life.

But there were a few entries he _had_ read, and there was one in particular that he’d revisited over and over again as a child, and occasionally even now; he’d set his device so it would alert him whenever the entry was updated. When the Last Great Time War had been entered in, Ford had dropped the Guide on the floor and broken it.

Having the Doctor _here_ – it was surreal, and it hadn’t quite sunk in yet, as though there were two Doctors adjacent in Ford’s mind: the one songs had been sung of, and the one standing before him now. Not even the sight of the TARDIS had managed to make these two Doctors converge.

But what did – what really made Ford realise that yes, this was _the_ Doctor, _the_ Destroyer of Worlds, _the_ Oncoming Storm, the Time Lord Victorious –

Was this.

~

“No more.” The Doctor’s eyes burned with fury. Rose would have expected the gun to sit awkwardly in her hand, seeing as she hated weapons so much, but instead it fit like a glove. As though she was accustomed to this, almost… _made_ for this. Made for something she’d spent the rest of her lives trying to shake off. There was the burning of a thousand planets reflected in the Doctor’s eyes, and at the forefront was Gallifrey.

 _They said the Doctor had never forgiven the Time Lords for her exile,_ whispered a memory in Rose’s mind.

“You will plague these worlds _no more.”_

“ _We have a right,”_ hissed the Vashta in their minds, and Rose shuddered at the unfamiliar feeling of something foreign and alien curling within her consciousness. “ _We have as much of a right to be here as anyone else.”_

An expression flashed across the Doctors face, something too fast to identify. “No,” she said. “You bring death. All of you.”

“And you do not?”

“No,” said Ford unexpectedly, stepping forward. “She does not. Yes, she has killed, no one can deny that. But look at what else she’s done. If she has killed thousands, she has saved countless billions, trillions, an _infinity_ of souls – everyone who has ever lived. The entirety of space and time.”

“And you are an agent of Death itself,” interjected Minnie. “You are no natural species. You cannot die, and all you bring is death. Ergo – you are a creation of Death. But even Death can be defeated.”

 “ _That is an oxymoron!”_

“Oh yes? Would you like to bet your life on it?” Minnies hand slid over the Doctor’s on the gun. “Your regeneration energy,” she murmured. “Processed artron energy coupled with white-point stars - Gallifrey calling to Gallifrey. It could destroy the Vashta Nerada’s ability to communicate with each other for ever, rendering them essentially harmless.”

“How could you possibly know that?” said the Doctor faintly.

“Call it a hunch,” said Minnie. “I always had a knack with hunches. Please, Doctor.”

The Doctor’s hand tightened on the trigger. “I think you’re right,” she murmured. “Othering Omega, you’re right. But should I – could I - ”

“It is the spawn of Death, and Death alone. And if it makes you feel any better… you won’t be killing them, you’ll simply be preventing them from doing harm.”

A tendril of golden light curled around the Doctor’s arm, her finger twitching on the trigger.

“Please,” Minnie whispered against her ear. “Save her. Just shooting it wouldn’t work a second time.”

The Doctor’s finger squeezed down, and a flash of light reverberated around the room.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr!](https://thymelord.tumblr.com) | check out the [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/archbunburyist/playlist/4RvYACvHs0Od4b6HXEY7ye?si=2OJf42QfS9aSyerO1MHcCA) i made for this fic


End file.
